ESG statement
Responsible investment that makes a difference
With more than three decades of experience*, Natixis Investment Managers, through its multi-affiliate model provides a single point of access to over 20 high-active share investment managers with diverse ESG capabilities.
With this unique combination of skill and scale, we believe we can be a force for positive social and environmental change. We believe we can both meet our commitments to clients and act as a force for positive, long-term social and environmental change.
At Natixis Investment, we believe in ESG that makes a difference.
We believe that:
- It can help identify risk.
- It can drive financial performance.
- It can even achieve positive social and environmental change.
To do this, however, asset managers must be clear in their approach – and clear in their purpose and objectives. We believe that ESG investing should be a means to an end, not an end in itself.
As a multi-affiliate investment manager, we are diverse by design, and our approach to ESG is no exception. We value autonomy, investment expertise and the entrepreneurship shown by each of our Affiliates. Consequently, we do not have one standardized approach to ESG. In our view, and for the reasons mentioned above, a successful ESG strategy is built, in part, on this diversity of approach. That being said, although the approach may differ, the direction of travel is clear: our Affiliates are expected to integrate ESG considerations into their investment decisions, to act – where relevant – as active owners, and to report regularly on their strategies.
Given the complexity of the issues, the investment industry can’t fix the world’s problems on its own. ESG integration by investment managers is an important step, but it’s not sufficient in itself. We need to work with others – with governments, with NGOs, with other investors – to find new ways of mobilizing and investing capital, so that we can make a difference. Another way of working together is to act as a driver of change teaming up with others in the investment industry. Unlike banks who may compete but who trade with each other, investment managers do not have a history of collaboration. This is changing.
For us at Natixis Investment Managers, responsible investment is about diversity, not divergence. More about engagement than exclusion. About impact and outcome rather than products. And it is also about outperforming the market, not following it. That is what this Responsible Investment report seeks to convey. Though it is our first such report, Affiliates have been working for years on ESG issues – often without calling it ESG. Indeed, some Affiliates have been at the forefront of the public debate surrounding these issues, developing new strategies, new funds and new thinking on how we can act responsibly as investors to benefit both our clients and society as a whole.
Natixis Investment Managers ranks among the world’s largest asset management firms with USD 1 017,7 billion AUM1
*The 1st SRI fund was created in 1984 within Ostrum Asset Management (Mirova was previously a division of Ostrum AM, Mirova has been created in 2012).
1Asset under management (“AUM”) as of June 30, 2020 AUM as reported may include national assets, assets serviced, gross assets, assets of minority-owned affiliated entities and other types of non-regulatory AUM managed or serviced by firms affiliated with Natixis Investment Managers.
